The present invention relates to an ink-jet recording apparatus and more particularly a multiple-ink-jet recording apparatus having an array of print head units so that ink dots in one line may be printed simultaneously.
There have been well known in the art various types of the multiple-ink-jet printers. In one type a continuous ink jet is issued from a nozzle of an ink head or manifold and breaks up into drops. The ink drop which is used or printed is charged at the instant when it is formed, and the charged drop is deflected by a pair of deflection electrodes by an amount proportional to its charge and strike a recording medium. The ink drops which are not used or printed are not charged so that they travel along a straight trajectory and are trapped for recirculation by a gutter disposed behind the deflection electrodes.
Gutters must be provided for respective print head units and must be located in the ink drop trajectories so as to trap the unused and uncharged ink drops traveling the straight trajectories. As a result, each print head unit cannot print an ink dot at a point on a recording medium just behind its gutter by its own ink drop. Therefore in order to print the spot just behind the gutter, the adjacent print head unit must deflect the charged ink drop at a large angle so that the deflected ink drop may be placed correctly at that spot. However, in practice it is very difficult to deflect the charged drop at a large angle with a high degree of accuracy so that the deflected ink drop may be correctly placed at the very spot behind the gutter without merging with the adjacent ink dots.